Monkey See Monkey Do

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That was a common phrase we use to say as children growing up as sort of way to criticize and make fun of those who just blindly followed what they saw others doing without any rhyme or reason to As humans we are an incredibly visual species and the importance that visuals play in our lives is becoming increasingly more important.

We are constantly engaging and interacting with visuals that not only shape our view of things but determine crucial parts of our socialization. Whether it is the way we form and remember slang words and idioms or whether it’s how we chose to dress and what colors to wear. Visuals are a crucial part of our modern day socialization. The way in which we perceive the world, ironically or maybe expectedly, is determined by the things we perceive.

So what then about our sexual socialization?

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The vast majority of people now have seen sexually explicit content well before their twelfth birthday resulting in a growing number of societies that are filled with people who at a very young age are learning about sex and sexuality. And while that inherently may not be a bad thing to some, the reality is that the portrayal of sex online is much different from
how romantic relationships may occur and potentially should occur in real life. That is to say porn and explicit content like porn tend to obscure sexually explicit material for the sole purpose of making it more erotic, simplistic and therefore more viable to the masses of sex-starved
humans searching for their next releases. The connection between sexual behavior and romantic relationships is almost indistinguishable. And so this link also exists parallel to sex in porn. That is to say,
because of the inherent relationship between these concepts, we as viewers can’t help but take queues about romantic relationships from the porn that we may watch.

Terrifying right? No? You don’t think so?

Here are a list of three harms that come out of watching prom and subsequently being taught human behaviors from its sexually explicit content.

“The ambivalent “No”

In porn across almost all platforms there is no real conception of a denial to a sexual advance. Even an initial rejection can still be transformed into a “Yes” or can even be taken or seen as ambivalently consenting to a sexual advance. That is because porn, all porn, has one focus and that is to showcase sexually explicit content. But that doesn’t do well to mirror the real society where denial and the lack of a sexual encounter are
incredibly common. By watching this type of content and engaging in its social construct many people and many men are getting a skewed perception of what consent may look and or sound like. And this leads to very dangerous sexual encounters that may be unwanted in the first place.

“The Greatest Sex of One’s life!”

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Porn is acting. Maybe not all parts of it but many parts of it are. This is to elicit a specific response from its viewers. But in this manner, it exaggerates or gives large misconceptions of what the reality of sex is actually like. And because of this misconception a lot of people when taking in that information and go on to engage in sexual activity in the future, they find that their real-life,
sex life or sexual experience does not match up with the visual sexually experience that porn had taught them to think was normal.

That is the downside of porn. It creates a false reality of what sex and intimacy should be like and in not adequately reflecting what those things are like it makes viewers of porn feel incredibly disappointed or unfulfilled because their sexual experience did not match up to what they were taught was right. It was as if you were using a math formula to solve for the unknown side of a diagram we will call x. But no matter how much you stick to the formula you can never solve for x. No matter what you do you can’t solve that problem. This type of frustration and confusion is a prime example of how porn affects us and produces negative social outcomes for those who are socialized by it.

Desensitization

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ZEYNEP YENISEYDEC 5, 2016

Constantly watching porn also diminishes our ability to be aroused over time. Because of the constant exposure to explicit content and explicit material over time we have to try new and more interesting and more sexually perverse manners and materials to sexually arouse ourselves. In the realm of porn individuals usually,
take to watching more risqué type of
pornography. But in real life, except for doing more risqué forms of sex, like BDSM, it is very difficult to up the stakes and in fact,
this can lead to a lot of individuals not being able to find their release from real life sexual intercourse. Only being able to find release from watching porn and receiving the sexual stimulus from the screen that they have become so accustomed to.

In conclusion,
These are some of the harms of porn and being socialized by a platform like
a porn. The next time you watch porn make sure to think twice about what exactly you are getting from the screen in front of you.